Kate Sedley - The Tintern Treasure

‘You mean you didn’t go after them?’ screeched Adela. ‘You made no attempt to get Adam back?’ Her face was chalk white and tear-stained. Elizabeth and Nicholas huddled together, staring at me accusingly with round, fearful eyes. Hercules began to bark, suddenly aware of the tension in the atmosphere. Even Luke was whimpering fretfully. ‘Why, in God’s name, didn’t you go straight to Richard Manifold? He would have arrested them before they had a chance to get clear of the town.’

‘Don’t you understand? I couldn’t risk it!’ I shouted back. ‘One or the other of them would have killed Adam out of sheer vindictiveness. If, that is, they hadn’t by that time disposed of him in this secret place Henry Callowhill was talking of. And then we’d never have seen him alive again.’

‘We. . We shan’t see him alive again anyway,’ she gasped, sitting down on one of the kitchen stools and rocking herself to and fro. ‘He’ll be dead before those two can send word back from Cornwall. If they ever do!’ My wife was seized with another spasm of sobbing so severe that she could hardly breathe. When at last she was able to speak, she demanded, ‘Didn’t it once occur to you that they didn’t mean what they said? That it was a trick to ensure your silence? That they’re going to kill Adam anyway?’

I nodded dismally, for the thought had come to me but not, although I wouldn’t admit it, until too late. ‘Where are you going?’ I demanded as Adela got abruptly to her feet.

‘To see Richard and tell him the whole. He’s a friend. He’ll not endanger Adam’s life. He’ll do as I ask and say nothing, but he might be able to help.’

‘No!’ I grasped her firmly by the shoulders. ‘You can’t involve him, and he wouldn’t do it in any case. Don’t you understand? We’re committing a felony. Misprision of treason! Concealing knowledge of a treasonable act. We can’t ask Richard’s silence. And I doubt he would give it. He’s an officer of the law and knows the penalty. At least, if the worst comes to the worst, I can throw myself on the king’s mercy and appeal to him as one father to another.’

Adela began to tremble violently. I forced her to sit down again and fetched her a beaker of water. ‘So what can we do?’ she whispered.

‘I must try to find Adam before those two villains — three, I suppose, with Lionel Despenser — have time to get too far on the road to Cornwall. Before it’s too late for a posse to be sent after them.’ I spoke with more confidence than I felt. ‘I think it’s just possible that I know where they might have hidden him.’

‘Where? Where, Roger? Tell me!’ I saw the hope leap in her eyes and felt guilty to have raised her expectations too high.

‘Sweetheart, don’t. . don’t. . It’s just that Henry Callowhill himself once told me that Master Foliot had a special underground strongroom built under the cellars at the St Mary le Port Street shop after he ceased to live there and moved to the house in St Peter’s Street. It’s possible that that’s where they‘ve put Adam and that either Ursula or Mistress Dawes knows where the key to it is.’

‘Then what are you waiting for?’ my wife demanded, pushing me in the direction of the door. ‘Go now! Go at once, this minute! Just go!’

I found the two women in a state of shock and near hysterics. When I could finally get any sense out of them at all, I gathered that Gilbert Foliot had returned home long enough to saddle his horse, pack a few garments and other necessaries in a couple of saddle-bags and then ride for the Redcliffe Gate. He had told them briefly that he and Henry Callowhill were joining Henry Tudor in Brittany and that they were henceforth on their own until such time as the latter returned in triumph to claim the crown. As neither woman believed that this would ever happen, they saw themselves as abandoned and penniless, and Ursula as the daughter of an attainted traitor. Margery Dawes could at least find other employment and, meantime, cast herself on the generosity of her kinsman, Lawyer Heathersett.

Brutally, I interrupted their lamentations.‘Did Master Foliot have my son with him?’ I yelled at them. ‘Will you both be quiet for a moment and attend to me!’

I seized Ursula and shook her hard. She was so surprised that she stopped crying and goggled at me. The housekeeper, too, was shocked into silence. Taking advantage of the sudden hush, I explained what had happened as well as I was able given my state of mind. I doubt if they understood anything very clearly, but at last they grasped the essential fact that Adam had been taken hostage and hidden somewhere as the price for my holding my tongue. When I suggested that the underground strongroom in St Mary le Port Street could be the place, Margery Dawes said at once that she knew where the keys to both it and the shop were kept. My heart began to slam against my ribs, and by the time she returned to the parlour with a bunch of keys dangling from her fingers, I had to fight to get my breath.

Barely pausing to utter my thanks, I left the house, the precious bunch clutched in my hand. Even now, after all these years, I can remember nothing of how I reached the shop nor of unlocking any doors or of searching the house and cellars. However, I do recall my agony of mind as I tried to locate the door to the strongroom and the way I yelled Adam’s name over and over again in the hope that, if he were imprisoned there, he would shout in return.

But there was no answering cry.

I had discovered candles and tinderbox in the kitchen of the old living quarters and, eventually, by the light of the flickering candle flame managed to find, in the farthest, darkest corner of the cellar, another door. My hands trembled so much that I had the greatest difficulty in fitting one key after another into the lock and cursing myself every time I failed, unsure if it was my clumsiness or the fact that I had not yet tried the right key that was responsible for my failure. Finally, however, the wards grated and turned and the door swung reluctantly inwards.

‘Adam!’ I called.

Silence.

All around me the glitter of gold was caught by the candle flame. Here, the goldsmith’s wares were stacked on shelves, waiting to be transferred, when necessary, to the shop — something that would never happen now. My hand shook and a drop of hot grease fell on my wrist, making me jump.

‘Adam!’ I cried again.

But the place was empty. He wasn’t there.

It is impossible to describe my feelings at that moment. I remember that I felt sick, so much so that I actually heaved and felt the bile rise in my throat. It seemed as though a black cloud had enveloped my mind, and I had, almost literally, to fight my way free of it, using all my willpower to prevent myself from just sinking down by the cellar wall and giving way to grief. I had been so certain that I had the answer to the problem that the disappointment was even more intense than it would otherwise have been. Indeed, I went so far as to search every corner of the strongroom in the ridiculous hope that I had somehow overlooked my son hiding in the shadows.

Finally, however, I came to my senses and forced myself to consider what I must do next. The thought of returning to Adela without Adam was unbearable, as was the realization that if I failed to discover where he was hidden I should have no option, if I were not to involve the rest of my family in treason, but to go to the sheriff with my story.

It was then that I thought of Mistress Callowhill.

I walked — or half-ran — back to Wine Street and hammered at the door of the wine merchant’s house. One of the men servants answered it and abruptly refused me admission. The master was from home and the mistress could see no one.